Cover image comparing MariaDB and MariaDB ColumnStore, showing MariaDB’s seal logo on the left and ColumnStore’s bar chart logo on the right with the text “What’s the Difference?” above.

MariaDB vs MariaDB ColumnStore: What’s the Difference?

MariaDB and MariaDB ColumnStore serve different workloads. MariaDB is a row-based relational database best for OLTP use cases like transactions, e-commerce, and web apps. ColumnStore, on the other hand, uses columnar storage optimized for OLAP, making it ideal for analytics, BI, and large-scale data queries. In practice, businesses often use both together—MariaDB for fast transactional operations and ColumnStore for analyzing massive datasets.

September 4, 2025 · 4 min · OctaByte